1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the display of time. In particular, the present invention relates to a timepiece that associates particular colors with each hour in a day and enables a person to tell time without the use of any numerical indicia.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Although many specific improvements have been implemented in timepiece designs, these basic improvements have remained unchanged in that they generally consist of using color not as a functional part of telling time, but merely to enhance a particular design. Therefore, the use of color is primarily cosmetic and not an integral function of the timepiece.
Learning to read traditional analogue clocks can be difficult for some people. For example, it is a common mistake to confuse the minute hand with the hour hand. It is also difficult to teach children to correctly “read” the minute hand (e.g., when the minute hand is pointing to number 1, it is 5 minutes past the hour, when the minute hand is pointing to number 2, it is 10 minutes past the hour, etc.). Finally, as the minute hand approaches the 12, the hour hand moves towards the next hour, thereby making it unclear what is the current hour unless the person makes the association that it is almost the next hour because the minute hand has almost completed a full revolution around the timepiece. All of these concepts are very difficult to master for a young child and in some cases even for adults.
Rather than improving the design of analogue clocks, digital designs have replaced the traditional analogue timepieces. Digital timepieces are easy to read and reduce the time and effort required to learn how to “tell time”. Children, however, often find it difficult to understand time based on a digital design because there is no visual representation of time that has past or time that is remaining in a particular hour. For example, looking at an analogue timepiece, it is easy to understand that if it is 6:15, there are 45 minutes remaining in the hour.
In other words, because the minute hand has to complete another ¾ of a revolution around the face, it does not require a lot of effort to visualize and quickly associate the position of the minute hand with a particular time based on the knowledge that one revolution around the timepiece equates to 60 minutes. On the contrary, there is no corresponding visual representation of time that is remaining in a particular hour in a digital timepiece.
What is needed, therefore, to overcome these inherent design limitations of both analogue and digital timepieces is the design of a new timepiece that utilizes specific colors that are associated with particular increments of time.